 But to begin with, this is what people are looking at. Preserving, defending whatever democracy persistently trails the economy and inflation is the issue voters are most concerned about. And when respondents' most important issue is solicited in an open-ended format, when respondents give an unprompted, top-of-the-mind answer, democracy isn't very high. Recent Gallup poll, only 4% fall into that bucket, vastly trailing economic problems. Even more recently, the New York Times piece, Siena poll finds that just 5% of voters